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  #1  
Old 01-16-2005, 02:32 PM
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DVD playing problems....

I'm hoping that someone here can assit me...... I have a Dell Latitude laptop, 400mhz, running Win XP located in my finish shop. A month or so ago, I had to wipe out the hard drive, and start over. I reloaded Win XP Home, and all my programs. The machine has a combo DVD/CD drive. When my first video was finished up, I tried to play it.....the machine doesn't recognize there is a DVD disc inserted. Previously the machine had WinDVD installed, and during the reload, I upgraded to WinDVD4. I tried a regular DVD movie, and managed to get sound, but only a black screen (no picture).
After searching the XP help files, and the microsoft website, it says that a "codec" might be missing, but that's all. I really don't know where to go from here......

Any advice on how to get the DVD playback to work would be appreciated.


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  #2  
Old 01-16-2005, 06:10 PM
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Ed, salut?

Sounds like you lost a codec somewhere. The first link takes you too a tool that?s good for diagnosing missing codecs. There?s no nasties with it, and if you drag the file you?re trying to open to it, it?ll tell you what codec is required and whether you have it. The second link could circumvent the first one by installing a whole pack of commonly used codecs.

http://www.headbands.com/gspot/

http://www.free-codecs.com/download/...Codec_Pack.htm

regards
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  #3  
Old 01-17-2005, 09:02 AM
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Further musing

I don?t usually use Windows media player for DVD, butt I?ve just run a quick test and this works:

I?m running Windows media player 9. Installing Stinky?s MPEG-2 Codec allows DVD drag and drop straight into the player. [It?s another route to opening them in TEMPGEnc for those that know what that can be used for too, but that?s off topic].

Sniff here: http://www.free-codecs.com/Stinky_MP...c_download.htm


:cool:
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  #4  
Old 01-20-2005, 10:20 AM
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Well, I've downloaded and installed the programs you recommended, but still have no luck viewing DVDs. When I try to play my Basic Forging video, the DVD drive does not even recognize that there is a disc in the drive. I'm at a loss for what to do next.


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  #5  
Old 01-20-2005, 10:34 AM
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I just went through this right before Christmas... If your DVD drive is doing the same thing mine is/was...

put a DVD in, you can hear the disc turn, sometimes. You even see the lights on the DVD drive running. Nothing ever happens from there. You can't access the drive, if you try to view it in Windows Explorer it doesn't really even recognize it.

If these are close to the same problems... guess what? It's time to get a new DVD drive. I did, spent $75.00 for a pretty nice one. All problems solved.... End of story.

Chris Nilluka
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  #6  
Old 01-20-2005, 11:00 AM
beebee58 beebee58 is offline
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I have plugged in DVD's in my player that is attached to the TV and they have played when they haven't played on my computer. Differant formats (ie, "+", "-") some of the older machines only support one of the formatts not both.
At this time there still is no clear winner as to which formatt will win out over the other. Some of us that are older will remember the "Beta" vs. "VHS" wars.


The first thing that I would do is to "try" and see if the DVD works on another player.


Good luck, and I hope this gives you a little more info to battle this problem.
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  #7  
Old 01-20-2005, 12:42 PM
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Hi Ed,

Mmm, that was irritating, but were not defeated yet. The most common problem with media playback is usually codec related. In essence, it is sufficient for our purpose to consider codecs as a means of compressing/decompressing data. My first suspicion would always be a missing codec, and that suspicion seemed confirmed when you wrote ?and the microsoft website, it says that a "codec" might be missing ?. With hind sight though, and re-reading exactly what you wrote, that was your sensible guess drawn from a search of the XP help-files, but quite distinct from ?I have this error message?. So, perhaps I jumped on that as confirmation a little prematurely, oops.

Regardless, good can still come of that dependant on the following:

When you wrote ?When I try to play my Basic Forging video, the DVD drive does not even recognize that there is a disc in the drive.? what exactly is the state of play? [sorry if I?m being a pain] Is that exclusive to that DVD and it will play others, or it won?t play any?

In a process of elimination way-

If it is only a simple codec matter and your dive is ok and your software media player is ok, you should be able to drag the appropriate drive icon in ?my computer? to the ?file/path? hole in that G-spot application. It should tell you immediately if you have the codec installed.

If that doesn?t work we should be suspecting your software player next. There?s a whole bunch of alternative freeware ones below. Admittedly I haven?t used any so I can?t vouch for their quality, but what I do know is SnapFiles doesn?t peddle freeware with nasties in, so one of them could be sufficient for testing - http://www.snapfiles.com/freeware/gm...iaplayers.html . Having said that, we could avoid the need for that by means of that Stinky?s MPEG-2 I flagged above. I?m running XP pro on this machine and I can drag the DVD dive icon in ?my computer? into an open Windows media player 9.

If this fails I need to scratch my head some more. I?m not immediately given to suppose your dive is failing. I?ve already punched up the following on Win DVD and a laptop:

?Compataibility issues.
I heard back from a customer that a dvd I sent him would not play in his laptop. I played it in a number of common players, and on my PC and laptop. It plays in just about everything but WinDVD can't play it.
To me, this is a serious problem.?
http://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=161#comments

Obviously though, we can probably elimate that option if you cant open it media player with that codec either.

Needs more research
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  #8  
Old 01-20-2005, 02:02 PM
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You could also spy for problems windows is having actually communicating with the DVD drive:

Control panel/performance and maintenance/system/hardware/device manager

Your DVD player should appear in that tree. Is there a yellow warning symbol next to it? When you click on it does it say the device is working properly? If there is a problem you may be able to fix it with the Update Driver option on the driver tab. An alternative would be to click the Unistall option on the same tab. When you reboot Windows should simply see the device again and request the driver.
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  #9  
Old 01-20-2005, 10:48 PM
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I did manage to get a DVD movie to play this afternoon (Star Trek), but I'm still not having any luck getting my Basic Forging Video to play. What I don't understand is that the computer in myoffice plays it just fine, but the laptop in my shop (which is the one I've been talking about all along) won't even recognize that there is a disc in the drive when I put in the Basic Forging Video.........I wiped out the hard drives of both machines a couple of months ago and did a fresh install of XP home. Both machines where loaded with the same programs..... Maybe one of these days I'll stumble across the difference.

Thanks for being so paitent and kind!


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  #10  
Old 01-20-2005, 11:02 PM
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your 2 dvd players are of different formats,it's strickly hardware and not software.only thing you can do without buying a new dvd player for the laptop would be to try and copy the dvd on the other computer .depending on the copying software and your ability to extract the data,it may then work on your laptop.
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  #11  
Old 01-20-2005, 11:22 PM
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Ed,

Did your video play before the upgrade to XP? I suspect that it is hardware, and your old DVD reader won't read the format (+ or -) like the others here. If it played before, and stopped when you upgraded, I would guess the upgrade put a new driver for the drive, that updated firmware in the DVD.

What format are you recording on (+/-) and what speed of media? There are sometimes problems with older drives reading the 8x and 16x media (some early writers could be destroyed, drive burn out I think, by inserting 4x media in a 1x writer).

--Carl
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  #12  
Old 01-21-2005, 08:02 AM
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Ed, hola.

On that, I?m inclined to agree with the above diagnosis of the drive requiring a firmware update or replacement. Without knowing exactly which drive you have it?s not possible for me to talk you through to a precise target, but here is a list of Dell available firmware updates from the Dell site: http://search.euro.dell.com/results....rmware&x=0&y=0


I can suggest a workaround for this depending on how demanding of the quality of the finished product you are, and how frequently you are likely to encounter this problem. You could always convert your DVD to an AVI on your office machine. Contained in that codec pack you installed is the fantastic XviD codec. If you had that installed on your office pc too you could use it in conjunction with DVDx http://www.labdv.com/dvdx/ to effect this conversion. Whilst I fully accept this is not the best tool for converting DVD to an XviD AVI file, DVDx could suit our purpose because it is only a few button clicks and nowhere near as ominous as it sounds when I?m willing to post in as many screen grabs of mine as it takes to demonstrate. Clearly, in the big scheme if things of you?ve had a professional DVD made this will do violence to it, but in all honesty if you just want to play it back on a laptop you?d be very hard pushed to spot the difference.

:cool:
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  #13  
Old 01-21-2005, 12:34 PM
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"As explained in the previous sections, there are two main formats: "dash" (DVD-R/RW) and "plus" (DVD+R/RW). There's not much difference between them. They both record data and video, and they both read back data and play back video. Both formats are available as recordable drives for computers and as home video recorders. In spite of claims that one format is more compatible with players and drives, both formats are similarly compatible (see 4.3.1). There are speed differences, but it's a game of leapfrog. One format will come out with faster write speeds, then the other one will match it or surpass it. In 2003, drives reached 8x speeds. 16x is the theoretical maximum, so both formats will soon hit the limit.

The biggest thing to worry about is that DVD-RW drives only record on -R and -RW discs, and DVD+RW drives only record on +R and +RW discs, so you have to make sure you get the right kind of blank discs. You may worry that one of the formats might "win" and the other format could disappear, leaving you with abandoned hardware. This is not very likely, since both formats are doing well. Luckily there is a simple solution to both concerns: buy a dual-format, or "combo" drive. Many companies make DVD-/+RW drives that write to both kinds of discs. Dual-format drives cost a bit more, but it's cheap insurance.

The DVD+RW format has a few advantages when used in a computer, but if data backup or access speed is important, also consider the DVD-RAM format. DVD-RAM is fast and reliable, and the discs have an optional cartridge to help protect data. Most DVD-RAM drives also write DVD-R/RW discs, and some super combo drives write all three formats."

from - http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#3.3
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